Bracken: The Town That Changed Its Name for the Post Office
Near San Antonio, Texas
Bracken sits in southern Comal County on the old International-Great Northern Railroad, about thirteen and a half miles southwest of New Braunfels. The land here traces back to William Bracken, who acquired a grant in eighteen forty-nine. But when the railroad came through and the community grew enough to need a post office, the townsite was actually called Davenport, named for James G. Davenport, who had settled there in eighteen sixty-eight.
The problem was that Texas already had a Davenport post office. So in eighteen eighty-three, residents renamed the community Bracken, going back to the original landowner. A gin and stores followed, then the post office opened. By the early twentieth century it was a small but functioning community. The post office closed by nineteen forty, and the population hovered around seventy-five for decades. Today Bracken is a quiet unincorporated community absorbed into the suburban sprawl north of San Antonio.
